NEW YORK — Growing up on Long Island, Katie Warner used to visit New York’s American Museum of
Natural History and remembers being frightened by the 94-foot-long blue whale model suspended from
the ceiling in the Hall of Ocean Life.

So it was “surreal” for Warner to return to the museum two summers ago to start a 15-month
master’s program in teaching — the only freestanding master’s program at a museum in the United
States.

“To be there for school was really, really exciting,” said Warner, who, like other graduates of
the program, is now a certified earth-science teacher working at a New York public school.

Funded by $2.6 million in federal Race to the Top dollars as well as money from the National
Science Foundation and philanthropist Kathryn Davis, the master’s program is a paid fellowship for
students, who must commit to teaching at a high-needs public school for at least four years.

The program consists of two summers of study sandwiched around a single school year when
candidates work as student teachers Mondays through Thursdays and attend classes at the museum on
Fridays.

“I feel like it’s a privilege being on the inside, really learning both science content and
pedagogy from the museum’s staff,” said Wanda Vargas, one of 17 current students.

She said the museum helped spark her interest in science when she was growing up.

Last year’s graduates are in the first year of their teaching commitment.

Warner said her seventh-graders benefit.

“They see that I’m in love with science,” she said. “I’m not just a teacher. I’m a science
lover, and I’m still learning.”

The museum’s permanent exhibits include a planetarium and fossil halls with massive dinosaur
skeletons, but only a tiny fraction of its 33 million specimens and objects are on display.

It also boasts the largest natural history library in the Western Hemisphere, said museum
president Ellen Futter.

“We have a broad array of assets that we have felt increasingly that we have a responsibility to
bring to bear on what is in this country a crisis in science education,” Futter said.